Whether your industry is property, the automotive sector, or even call tracking, leading boards at disruptive companies understand the importance of increased digitisation combined with a feverous obsession with customer centricity. But how is this done in practice?
At Forrester’s Digital Transformation Europe event, a key theme was not only how to execute a beneficial digital transformation of your business, but how to do it at an enterprise level while also maintaining the agility necessary to steer the ship. Let’s face it, you won’t get everything right on the first attempt, and even if you do, digital transformation is an ongoing process as things change. This topic was one that has kept us thinking ever since, as it’s one we feel every forward-thinking business needs to approach.
To get you started, we have compiled a short list of organisational strategies needed to drive disruptive digital agility at scale.
Embrace startup culture leadership
This doesn’t necessarily mean filling your office with ping-pong tables, beanbags, and novelty scooters (but hey, if it works, you do you), but looks more at the mindset of leadership.
In his keynote presentation at Digital Transformation Europe, Diego Lo Giudice encouraged senior figures to cease their traditional ‘command and control’ role and focus more on developing into servant leaders, who understand what’s blocking progress and how they can help expedite progress.
“Instead of asking ‘where are we?’ ask ‘how can I be of help? What are our challenges? Where can we tear down barriers?’ These questions will avoid defensive responses, and lead you quicker to understanding how you can help your team."
Diego Lo Giudice | Vice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester
Make it safe to fail fast
No digital transformation happens without making changes throughout your business (it wouldn’t be much of a transformation otherwise). It’s also highly unlikely every idea you have will work perfectly, or at all.
Your team needs to feel like they can explore new things, and you need to let them while simultaneously minimising risks. Smaller, fast-moving trials that are regularly communicated with you will highlight issues quickly, allowing you to smooth new processes, products, or ideas before scaling them up.
Stay informed and curious about emerging technology
Enterprise businesses that are able to disrupt in their space are underpinned by an agile infrastructure that is able to adapt to changing demands or new strategies. For example, identifying what can be reliably automated within your business can speed up performance and improve accuracy, giving you bandwidth to approach more complex tasks that your competitors may not be ready to approach. Achieving this will often require new solutions, which you will need to actively learn about and embrace. Part of this education will involve understanding when and how to use them correctly.
But make sure you keep an end goal in mind. There is no shortage of new tech products and services available to you, it’s very easy to get distracted by the myriad of possibilities they present. Ensure you know what you want to achieve to help focus your research and investment.
What works with what you have?
A key aspect of becoming an insights-led digitally transformed company is being able to create joined-up clarity from your data, which is easy to navigate and act upon. This is achieved by having a harmonious tech stack that works together, and prioritising platforms that integrate with your existing systems rather than creating another data silo.
“It’s through the leveraging of existing technologies in combination with emerging ones that you can achieve broader values and accelerate the applicability of emerging technologies. As we’ve seen thus far with technologies like AI, cloud computing, mobile and more, emerging technologies rapidly accelerate in both capability and price point (lower cost, generating higher profits) as they gain implementations.”
James Staten | VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester
At Infinity, we have built a healthy network of partnerships with over 35 leading technology suppliers for your benefit. See some of them here, are any of yours included?
Close gaps in your data
If you’re not connecting customer journeys from marketing channels to your contact centre, including phone calls, you are risking missing substantial opportunities for growth and wasting an abundance of marketing spend. Start a conversation with Infinity today to discover the gaps we can close in your data and the very real benefits this can bring to your digital transformation.
References:
1) You Can’t Afford to “Wait & See” With Emerging Tech, Forrester, (June 21, 2018)
